DiabloFans

Quote from OmniNom

None of y'all can do math. (I say as I edit this once again. My probability math is rusty.)

For each additional beta-opt in, you're not only increasing the number of chances you have of getting into the beta, but increasing the number of potential beta-key picks.

I'll break it down.

If you can only get one ticket, you start with a 1/100 chance, plus a (1/99)*(99/100) chance (the odds of getting the second one after having not gotten the first one), etc. This is a fancy way of calculating that it's 10/100 or 1/10. But you knew that.

If you buy a second account and opt in, now there are 101 applicants. The odds are now 10/101 for that second account.

90/101*90/100 Gets us the probability the probability neither of the tickets them will succeed, the inverse of which is the probability that one or both will. This number is ~19.8%

So the important thing to note here, is that each subsequent ticket has reduced odds.

Now, it's not a huge change especially in a huge pool of applicants, but it DOES mean that there are diminishing returns on extra accounts.

On the other hand, the odds of getting into the beta aren't nearly as bad as that one guy said. Blizzard knows that not everyone taken will accept, or even know what a beta is (betas are opted into by default if IIRC), so they will give beta keys to a large portion of accounts. I personally knew 2 people who got into the Starcraft beta (I took one of their accounts ), out of maybe a dozen people who were opted-in.

That's not a reasonable sample size, but it does tell me that the odds aren't that bad. If it were even 1/1000 the odds of two showing up in the same small group would be absurdly low. I think something like 1/100 or 1/50 are far more likely odds.

In that respect, with the diminishing returns being fairly small because there are so many blizz accounts, buying extra games might not be a bad option. The change in total volume would be miniscule, so buying 10 games and having 10 accounts would be pretty close to 10/50 or 1/5 odds. Approximately 18.3%.

However, the real question is: is it worth spending 200$ for 10 games that you already own, just to have a 18.3% chance of getting in the beta? Especially if pre-ordering the game will get you into the beta at a later date? This is not confirmed, but highly probable.

Quote from Juystafan

If I had a .0000001 chance with one box... then I would only have a .0000004 chance with 4 boxes... the increase is therefore insignificant. Even the way i put it is incorrect because the denominator increases with the numerator and actually decreases the increase of odds each time an account is added... anyways i hope you get it... I dont care to explain the math.

it may increase odds significantly but the odds are still very very very poor.

Quote from maspak

Yes, but I'm afraid that the fact that I live afar will make the shipping much longer...

I dont believe that the game would hit the stores here on the release date.

If pre-ordering from Amazon means that I would get it on the release date even though I live in the middle east, then it's a no-brainer.

Quote from Absolut

It would be funny if they picked names from a hat

Quote from TheWeirdOne

No, don't do that math. I'll do it.

Let's suppose there are 10,000 beta keys to be given out.

You sign up for 2. That's 1/10000 + 1/10000 = 2/10000. That's TWICE AS LIKELY to get opted in.

Or say you sign up with 3 accounts. That's 3/10000. That is 3 times as likely.

Your chances are still low, but you're still on an order of magnitude more likely to get in. Brought to you by science.


You take out the factors that I highly doubt Blizzard would give beta to people with very similar specs to another computer, and also area.

This isn't a simple more = better chance, it's a complex formula that Blizzard probably uses for each Beta. This computer is located in X area, we only want to give out X betas to this area, this computer has the same specs as X in X area, we'd prefer to not give the beta to this person because of the similarities, etc.

Generally you want a diverse beta testers as possible with a PC game.

Quote from maspak

Thanks for the replies.

But as I said I live in the middle east, very far from the US. I assume it wont it the stores here at Day 1.

Would I get it from Amazon on the release date even if I live far from the US?
I dont mind waiting a couple of hours to get the CD instead of downloading from battle.net. But, I wouldnt like to have to wait for the game for weeks just because I made a mistake by ordering it.


What do you think?

Quote from CherubDown

The odds increase your chances significantly, actually. 2 accounts increase your chances 2-fold. 4 accounts increase your chances 4-fold, etc.

But unless you have different hardware configurations on multiple computers, some of those might not count depending on how the beta optin works. They definitely do take into consideration hardware specs when deciding who gets to play.

Quote from Doomscream

I am going to buy a copy of D2 tomorrow so I can opt-in with another account

Quote from Doomscream

The poll really sucks by the way.

Quote from rendolphe

TP sucks !!!

Why they have to bring them back when they add more waypoint ? You want to take break for real life purpose ? Just leave the game or ask your team to back your ass when afk. You can go back easily where you was with the waypoint system if you left the game.

No TP in game = no rush through TP. So the lazy low lvl that wait for TP for keypoint to rush acts will be screw. YAY.

But Blizzard didn't see the thing like that and I'm really excited to see the result in the beta soon ...

Quote from Xtapolapacetl

Pots are on a cooldown for sure though, so that kind of keeps the health spamming to a minimum as well.

Quote from Riesza

Quote from Xtapolapacetl

Quote from Riesza

If anything a 5-10 minute cooldown on a townportal spell would be perfectly fine.

I think you should just not be able to teleport back in combat. That would fix everything that was apparently wrong with townportals in Diablo II without introducing awkward game mechanics.

But then again, with a cooldown on potions and health orbs as the primary healing source there would not be a reason to remove spammable tps anyway.

As long as you couldn't run out of combat either...cause you can just run backwards until you lose aggro then make a TP

I assumed bosses would just heal up if you left combat.

Quote from Juystafan

!!!!? Infinite tp usage takes away from blizzards original thought of making people worry about health. If you use a tp after each battle, you could go to town to heal up easily. Its dumb, forget infinite usage.

I'm sure Blizzard will find a balance between losing health and getting health orbs so that when you finish a fight you should be mostly healed up. This game can't be this hard that you are sitting on the edge of your seat looking for ways to heal yourself. They just wanted to not let people abuse the constant going back to town to buy a new row of health potions.

Quote from Argll

As long as it is an awayfrommonster-use, i don´t see a problem with infinite tp usage.

Quote from Riesza

If anything a 5-10 minute cooldown on a townportal spell would be perfectly fine.